


if i could choose to live here at the station i would

by writerblender



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, POV Outsider, i have no fucking idea how to tag this fandom so, no beta we die like men, or at least as much as men can die in this fandom u get me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-21
Updated: 2020-08-21
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:46:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26022136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writerblender/pseuds/writerblender
Summary: "I’m Joe,” the stranger introduces himself, before gesturing to the man seated next to him. “And this is Nicky.”"I’m Lucy. I’m eight. How old are you?”[or, Nicky and Joe make a new friend, or, yet another outsider POV]
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 45
Kudos: 547





	if i could choose to live here at the station i would

Lucy is eight years old and currently in a _very_ important staring competition with the man sitting across from her on the train.

He's not looking at her, which means she's winning, _obviously_ , but she’s not going to tell him that. She's still peering curiously at the stranger, watching as he draws something in the notebook on his lap, when the man next to him catches her in the act and carefully elbows the stranger.

Lucy can't help the way her mouth falls open, surprised at the man's betrayal, and both men chuckle when they see her expression. Lucy's face quickly morphs into a pout, hugging the pink backpack currently resting on her lap tighter to her chest.

"I'm sorry, _amica_ ," the other man says to her. Lucy doesn't understand everything he says, but he _is_ apologizing. She _thinks_. She sticks her tongue out at him in response, still angry at him for telling on her. 

"He didn't mean to disturb you," the stranger says, and Lucy turns to look back at him. She's much more interested in what he's doing. He looks right back at her and Lucy knows it’s a _real_ staring contest now.

"Are you all by yourself?"

Lucy pauses. Her dad has warned her about not talking to any strangers while on the train, but she’s _eight_ now. She’s almost double digits. How is she ever going to make friends if she’s not allowed to talk to them first? Plus, the lady in the uniform who helped her to her seat was a stranger, but she was allowed to talk to _her_. Lucy reasons fairly quickly the men in front of her are friends, but she’s still careful. “No,” she shakes her head. “I’m with Ollie.” She gestures to the stuffed octopus toy tucked securely under her elbow. It's a gift from her dad, a friend to make the long train ride to her mom with, and it's very important that he stays with her at _all_ times.

”He looks like a very good companion,” the other man notes. Lucy glares at him, but only for a few seconds. She’s still mad but she’s willing to forgive him if Ollie is.

"I’m Joe,” the stranger introduces himself, before gesturing to the man seated next to him. “And this is Nicky.”

"I’m Lucy. I’m eight. How old are you?”

Joe and Nicky share a look for a beat before they answer. Lucy thinks it’s a pretty easy question to answer, but she supposes that maybe it gets harder to remember when the number gets bigger. Her grandma has trouble remembering things some times. Maybe it's like that. “We're a bit older than eight,” Joe finally answers.

It’s not the answer she’s looking for, but Lucy accepts it. Her mom doesn’t like it when she asks how old grandma is when they visit. Maybe, she thinks, it's like that too. They don't look as old as her grandma, but she's never been too good at math anyways. “Are you two best friends?”

“Yes, we are,” Joe answers much quicker this time and Lucy's face lights up with excitement. She notices then that they’re holding hands over the armrests, a detail she missed when she was distracted by Joe's sketchbook, and it only makes her more excited.

”I have a best friend! Her name’s Hannah. We hold hands on the playground too sometimes,” Lucy informs them, shifting excitedly in her seat at just the mention of the other girl. “What are you drawing?”

The change of topic is abrupt, but Joe moves with it easily. “Why don’t you look for yourself and see?” He asks, flipping his sketchbook to show her the last page, watching carefully as her eyes widen with wonder. He has to pull his hand away from Nicky's to give her a more steady viewing, but her reaction is more than worth the missing warmth of Nicky's presence for a few moments. Lucy looks over at Nicky, comparing the real version of him to the sketch, and lets out a small gasp of wonder when she realizes it _is_ a picture of Nicky. “What do you think?" Joe continues. "Any good?”

”Whoa, that's so cool!” Lucy cries. Her excitement, however, is tempered as she looks back to Nicky with careful, concentrated eyes. One hand comes up to carefully tap against her chin, almost comically so, and she scrunches her nose now as she concentrates harder, eyes flickering between the sketch of Nicky and the real version, sitting only a few feet away. “I _think_ you got his smile wrong. His teeth aren’t that straight.”

Joe bursts into laughter at her review, as Nicky playfully rolls his eyes. He's worried, only for a brief flash of a moment, that he's offended Lucy by laughing at her honest advice, but it quickly dissipates when she sees her hiding a giggle behind Ollie's comically large stuffed head.

”I believe you have you first critic, _cuore mio_ ,” he hums, as Joe continues to laugh.

”What does that mean?” Lucy interrupts before Joe can, her brown eyes still wide with wonder.

”Critic? Well, it is a person who points out the flaws of another person's work, sometimes to help but —,” Nicky begins.

Lucy cuts him off with a giggle. “No, no, I know what that means!” She assures him. She's not a baby anymore; she knows big words just like they do. Except, that is, the funny ones that these only two seem to know. She wonders if they have their own language, that only best friends know, like she and Hannah do. “The other thing. The cure-whoa-rah me-oh,” she attempts.

” _Cuore mio_ ,” Nicky corrects her gently, and Lucy nods enthusiastically.

”Yeah! And you called me something funny earlier too,” she reminds him.

”Not funny, _Italian_ ,” Joe offers, and Lucy’s attention quickly switches to him. Her secret friendship language theory is immediately squashed, but she doesn’t linger on the loss for long. She’s never heard anyone speak Italian before. This is just as cool. “He called you _amica_ , or a friend.” Lucy beams at this, so Joe continues. “He called me _cuore mio_ , his heart.”

Lucy’s brow furrows as she thinks. “His heart?” She repeats. "Why?"

”Because,” Joe says softly, reaching over to tread his fingers with Nicky’s once again. Nicky flips over his hand on the armrest, palm up, an open invitation for the other man to take. “He’s not just my best friend. He’s also my husband.”

There’s a moment’s pause before Lucy speaks up again.

”You can do that?!” She practically shrieks. “You can marry your best friend?!”

Joe can’t help the smile that spreads across his face, especially when Nicky chuckles to himself at the young girl’s innocence. “Yes, _piccola_ , you can.”

Lucy is too excited to notice Joe’s slip back into Italian. “I’m going to ask Mom if I can marry Hannah as soon as we can get home,” she informs them. Nicky chuckles again and Joe turns to spare a look at the man he shares his heart with. He is as breathtaking as he was the day they met, despite the bloody violence surrounding them, and Joe is tempted to lean over and press a kiss to his lips when Lucy interrupts him.

”Who’s that?” She asks quietly, shifting in her seat as she tries to get another peek at Joe’s sketchbook. She points to the sketch in the uppermost corner of the page, a small outline of a man now long gone from their lives.

“That is our brother,” Joe says. Booker’s eyes, though nothing more than a few pencil strokes, stare back at him. There is longing in them, even now.

”He looks sad,” Lucy observes. She traces the lines of Booker’s scowl, smudging the careful lines Joe has crafted. She observes the charcoal on her pointer finger with curiosity, quickly rubbing it away on her jeans. “You should give him a smile.”

”He did not smile very often,” Joe replies.

”Maybe you just need to give him a reason to,” Lucy suggests, shrugging innocently. “You should tell him a joke. Or give him a hug.”

Joe wishes it were that easy. He wonders if that would have been enough; if he and Nicky and Andy had lingered a little longer, looked just a bit harder, held on just a fraction tighter, if it could’ve stopped what Booker had done. As if to read his thoughts, Nicky squeezes his hand gently, pulling him from the thoughts that threaten to swallow him. 

Lucy must be able to sense what she’s said is the cause for the dampened mood around her, as she squeezes Ollie tighter to her chest, looking between Joe and Nicky nervously in the silence, before her face lights up with an idea.

“Do you want to have a drawing contest?”

Before Joe can answer, she’s rummaging through her backpack, pulling out a small notebook covered in stickers of fish and other sea creatures and a purple pen. “I’m going to be a marine biologist when I grow up,” she informs Nicky matter-of-factly, as if she can hear the question from his inquisitive share alone, before she flips open to a blank page. “Okay. We each have to draw each other something and then Nicky and Ollie will be the judges.”

She turns back to Nicky, eyes narrowing. “And you have to be fair. No cheating just because you’re a team.”

”I will be fair so long as Oliver is too,” Nicky offers.

” _Ollie_ makes no promises,” Lucy teases right back, before she turns to Joe. “Okay, ready? Go!”

She’s given him little time to prepare, but it doesn’t seem to matter to Joe, who is already bent over a fresh page in his book. Nicky allows him to once again pull from their hold on each other, his focus centered on the art he’s creating in front of him. He could watch Joe like this for hours — already has — so at ease and in his own element. He much prefers this to the violent life they have relegated themselves to; more often than not lately, Nicky thinks he could happily live out the rest of his eternity simply at peace with Joe by his side. But, they have Nile to teach and Andy to learn from, while she’s still here with them. They have people to protect — people like Lucy, small but determined and somehow endlessly kind. Nicky’s gaze flickers over to where she is drawing with just as much concentration, half of her tongue stuck out of her mouth as she focuses on the piece of paper in front of her. She is more than worth it, Nicky thinks, but he lets his gaze return to Joe, content to drink him in for as long as he will let him.

Joe is still drawing and Lucy is quickly running out of inspiration for what Nicky counts is her fourth piece now, when he finally speaks up.

”Who are you and Ollie going to visit?”

”My mom,” she answers, feet thumping against the seat where they dangle above the floor. She’s almost tall enough to touch the floor sitting down. “She lives in New York with her boyfriend. My dad says I have to visit her for half the year, or she’ll get sad.”

”I’m sure she would,” Nicky hums in agreement. “She must miss you very much while you’re gone.”

”Yeah,” Lucy doesn’t seem as convinced as he is. “Are you a dad too?”

Her question is abrupt, but he sees Joe smile from where he’s still bent over his piece of paper. “No,” Nicky tells her, “but that’s alright. We have a very loving family. It’s who we’re going to visit in the city.”

“Your brother?” She asks quickly. She’s smarter than Nicky gave her credit for.

”No,” Nicky replies. “We have other family.”

Lucy looks ready to ask him at least a hundred more questions, when Joe sits up with a flourish, finally finished with his piece. Nicky suspects he was done a few moments ago, curious to hear Nicky’s answers as much as Lucy’s questions, but he’s saved Nicky from the worst of it. A planned pause, Nicky observes.

”Are you ready to see?” Joe asks, and Lucy nods so quickly Nicky thinks her head will roll right off her shoulders. Joe carefully tears the paper from the notebook as to not disrupt his drawing, before handing it to Lucy upside down.

Lucy takes the paper eagerly, flipping it over almost as soon as it’s in her hands.

Her reaction is instantaneous.

“It’s me!” She shrieks in excitement, gaze transfixed on the paper in her hands. It is her; Nicky’s seen Joe’s artwork for almost a thousand years now, and it still never fails to amaze him in how effortless it looks in its creation. Joe has barely known Lucy for more than an hour, but he’s recreated an almost perfect image of her onto the page. She’s so caught up in her excitement over Joe’s drawing that she almost forgets her own, only reminded when Joe asks her softly.

She carefully tucks her new picture into the front cover of the book in her bag, double checking to make sure it’s not wrinkled or folded, before she moves on to show off her artwork. She shows off the picture of her and Hannah first, stick figures enjoying a swing set and slide together, pointedly holding hands on both (“Like you and Nicky!” she adds), before moving on to the portrait of her family in front of their home. Her mom and dad have to stand on opposite sides of the house, but she doesn’t mind, especially not when she has her dad’s dog, Buster, and mom’s cat, Dot, to help close the distance between them. Finally, she reveals her grand masterpiece. 

It’s the inside of a train, specifically their train car, down to the detailing of the ugly patterned fabric of the seats, and all in a row, are her, Ollie, Nicky, and Joe. Ollie has his own seat, of course, tentacles curling every which way, and Lucy has given herself the biggest smile among them. Joe and Nicky are easy to distinguish, with the spirals of Joe’s curls and beard covering the lower half of his face, and Nicky’s disguise glasses taking up a comically large portion of his face.

”It’s us!” Lucy continues, and Joe allows her to point out each detail, from all eight of Ollie’s legs to the way he and Nicky‘s stick figure selves are holding hands. She holds it out to him then, proud smile decorating her face. “Here, you get to keep this one. I’m giving the other one to Hannah when I get back.”

”She’ll love it,” Nicky encourages her, as Joe hands him the drawing to look at.

“So, who won?!” Lucy nearly shouts with excitement. She’s still looking at Nicky expectantly, when the woman from earlier in her green uniform stops next to Lucy’s seat.

”Lucy, dear, it’s time to go,” she says politely. “We’re about to arrive and I hear your mom has been waiting to see you all morning.”

Lucy seemingly deflates when she realizes her time with Nicky and Joe has ended, but she still nods and smiles at the attendant as she stands, careful to sling her backpack and jacket back on, before she takes the attendant’s outstretched hand.

”Bye, Nicky. Bye, Joe,” she says, free hand coming up to wave goodbye to them both. “I hope you see your brother soon.”

”Goodbye, Lucy,” Joe replies. “It was a pleasure to meet such a talented artist like yourself.” He gestures to the drawing still in his hand, and Lucy beams with pride.

”Don’t tell him, _amica_ ,” Nicky practically whispers to her, “but I think you won.” 

Lucy grins even wider now, which Joe isn’t entirely sure how is even possible, before giving them one last wave and following the attendant as she guides her through the train cars. She’s still so happy with her victory and newfound friends that she doesn’t even notice that she’s alone, Ollie still tucked safely into the seat beside her, further gone with each skip of her step.

...

Lucy is walking with her mom toward the exit of the station, excitedly recounting her time away, swinging their hands widely between them, when she remembers.

She gasps, freezing in her step, and her mother stops with her, concern etched into her features instantly.

”What’s wrong, baby?” Her mother asks, bending down to be eye level with Lucy. “Are you alright?”

”I left Ollie!” It’s all Lucy can muster at the moment, horrified at the thought alone.

”Ollie?” Her mother repeats, helplessly lost. “Who’s Ollie?”

”There’s no time, Mom. We have to go back!” Lucy insists, tugging on her hand with both of her own. “Ollie’s on the train still! I can’t leave him! Mom, come on!”

”Honey, you have to tell me who Ollie is first so I know who we’re looking for,” her mother insists, and Lucy lets out a frustrated groan. They’re _barely_ moving — her mom is still kneeling down next to her — and she just isn’t listening. She doesn’t have time to explain. The train is going to leave soon and take Ollie with it. She promised her dad she wouldn’t lose it —

“ _Calmati, amica_!”

Lucy stops in her efforts to drag her mom back to the platform, small gasp tumbling from her lips. She knows that voice. It’s —

“ _Ollie_!” She screeches with joy as the purple octopus dips back into her eyesight, quickly taking the stuffed animal from the man’s hand and hugging it tightly to her chest. Above her, she can hear Joe introduce himself to her mom, explaining the situation to her. Distantly, she hopes that Joe and her mom are friends now too; she wants to ride the train with he and Nicky all the time. At the moment, however, she can only cuddle Ollie harder, grateful to have been reunited with him.

She pulls away only when she feels her mom’s hand on her back, guiding her toward the exit once again, and while Lucy wants to go home, wants to see Dot and her own bed again, when she looks up, all she sees is Joe’s back to her, walking away from them.

That won’t do, at all.

”Joe!” She screeches, swiftly ducking out of her mom’s hold and rushing toward the man, Ollie still safely tucked under her arm. He stops, turning to look where the noise came from, and Lucy is quick to close the gap between them. She doesn’t stop once she reaches him; she barrels into his side, arms wrapping tightly around his waist as she hugs him.

” _Piccola_ ,” Joe says softly, reaching down to hug her back as best he can, with her vice grip still around his torso. He can’t do much but pat her back gently, but it seems to be enough.

”If Hannah wasn’t my best friend, I think it’d be you,” she says, releasing her hold on him to look at him directly. Her smile is soft, like she truly means each word she says, and something twists in Joe’s chest. He has a thousand words ready on his tongue, but none of them seem to be right for the small girl in front of him. It seems, however, that the silence between them is more than enough for her.

“Okay,” Lucy says, arms resting at her sides, one tentacle of Oliver’s tight in her left hand. He flops at her side, attentive as ever. “Bye for real this time.”

”Bye for real,” he echoes, watching as she hurries back to her mother’s waiting arms. He gives her a polite wave as she mouths an apology to him across the station, and they disappear into the crowd.

...

Lucy is ready to go home.

She keeps her hand tightly in her mom’s grip, especially when they jump onto the escalators together. She’s listening only half-heartedly as her mother tells her stories of how Dot has gotten herself into trouble around the apartment since she’s been gone; she’s more focused on looking back just once more before they’re out onto the street, where she won’t be able to see her friends again. She finds them quickly; Nicky and Joe are still holding hands, but they’re hugging their own family now, a tall woman with short hair and a younger woman with long braids and a big smile. 

Nicky looks back in her direction and meets her gaze. He smiles, and Lucy is quick to wave goodbye to him before it’s too late. Her waving hand is coincidentally the one with a secure hold on Ollie, and she hopes, as he moves through in the air with his own goodbye attached to hers, that Nicky and Joe’s friends are half as good as hers are.

...

Nile has not stop talking about Joe‘s actions at the train station since they’ve gotten into the rental car. “It was like a viral FaceBook post come to life,” she adds. “I can’t believe part of our job is being so fucking adorable.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Andy huffs from the passenger seat, fiddling with the radio absentmindedly. “If you don’t stop reminding us, we’re all going to sit here and listen to NPR for the next hour.”

”Oh, absolutely not,” Nile protests. “Driver gets music privileges.”

Andy laughs, propping her feet up on the dashboard. “Not in my car,” she retorts.

As she and Nile begin to debate the ethics and property of stolen vehicles, lost in their own conversation, Nicky carefully unfolds Lucy’s drawing, tucked neatly into his pocket after Joe had rushed after Lucy upon discovery of her friend left behind, and hands it to the other man. They’re pressed impossibly close together in the backseat, practically on top of one another, seatbelts long forgotten. It’s a comfortable proximity, especially now that their only company is the two women up front.

”Nicolò,” Joe breathes, teasing tone heavy in his voice. “What happened to ‘ _Andy was right about your trail of art_ ’? What would she say to this?”

”She doesn’t need to find out,” Nicky replies. “And if she does, it’s just another one of your sketchbooks. Nothing wrong with those.”

“ _Mia musa_ ,” Joe hums, closing the small distance between them to press his lips against Nicky’s, hand coming up to cradle the back of his head gently.

”Oh, so you two have time to make out in the backseat but not back me up?!” Nile’s voice breaks them apart as Nicky mumbles half-hearted apologizes to her, most of which are drowned out by Andy’s laughter.

Carefully, Joe folds the drawing back as Nicky had, slipping into his jacket pocket to rest just above his heart as, in the backseat of a semi-stolen rental car filled with the voices and laughter and hearts of his family, his heart presses closer to him still.

**Author's Note:**

> tag yourself i'm lucy absolutely adoring joe the second she meets him
> 
> this was inspired by a tumblr post by mewbotz that listed a bunch of outsider povs to explore nicky and joe’s relationship. thanks for the idea! (and ao3 user spoiledgods for reminding me of the original poster!) this was also inspired by the few wonderful kid!fics on here in this fandom. i wanted to give it a kinda sorta try.
> 
> i apologize if this is shitty or there are a ton of mistakes in this. my mental health has been super bad recently and i had a 20k+ word fic for these two that i scrapped twice, before i found inspo to write this, so i’ve been blocked and frustrated up until now, which may explain if this is garbage. also i wrote this all on my phone and as the tags say this is un-betaed, as per usual. we die like men (or try to) on ao3 so be kind to me if you can.
> 
> that was a lot! thanks if you’re still reading. you’re the best.
> 
> holler w/ me on tumblr @ wndasmaximoffs
> 
> kudos and comments are always appreciated <3
> 
> title from 'faces going places' by lucy moon (where our story’s lucy gets her name from!)


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